The Fourth Raadsaal (Afrikaans: "Vierde Raadsaal") is a historic building in Bloemfontein, South Africa, which serves as the meeting place of the Free State Provincial Legislature, the legislature of the Free State. It is located opposite the Supreme Court of Appeal in President Brand Street. [1]
In the early 1880s, it was resolved to build a new presidency office and chamber council. The designs for both buildings were awarded to Johannesburg-based Lennox Canning. The new presidency office was completed in 1886, yet work on the chamber council had not begun until 1889 when a tender of £27,183.10 was accepted by another Johannesburg-based architect, TR Robertson. President Francis William Reitz laid the foundation stone on 27 June 1890. Due to construction issues, another tender of £12,500 was awarded to JJ Kirkness. The new building was formally inaugurated on 5 June 1893 when the members walked from the old chamber to the new one. A further £4,000 were spent on internal furnishings over the following years. [1]
In March 1900, British forces occupied Bloemfontein and the building became a military hospital. Most of the furnishing were acquired and are now in private homes. The Orange River Colony became the legitimate government in 1907. The colony had a two-chamber legislature consisting of a council and a legislative assembly. The lower council continued to meet in the Raadsaal, while a separate building facing Aliwal Street housed the upper house. In 1910, the Union of South Africa, was formed and the Raadsaal housed the provincial council. The chamber and its rooms were occupied by the Appeal Court until its own premises was ultimately built in 1929. [1]
After the first non-racial elections in 1994, a decision was taken to house the newly-established provincial legislature in the building. [1]
Bloemfontein, also known as Bloem or the City Of Roses, is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals along with legislative capital Cape Town and administrative capital Pretoria. Bloemfontein is the seventh-largest city in South Africa. Situated at an elevation of 1,395 m (4,577 ft) above sea level, the city is home to approximately 520,000 residents and forms part of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality which has a population of 747,431. It was one of the host cities for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
The Orange Free State was an independent Boer sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Empire at the end of the Second Boer War in 1902. It is one of the three historical precursors to the present-day Free State province.
The Orange River Colony was the British colony created after Britain first occupied (1900) and then annexed (1902) the independent Orange Free State in the Second Boer War. The colony ceased to exist in 1910, when it was absorbed into the Union of South Africa as Orange Free State Province.
The North Carolina General Assembly is the bicameral legislature of the State government of North Carolina. The legislature consists of two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The General Assembly meets in the North Carolina Legislative Building in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States.
The Free State is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bloemfontein, which is also South Africa's judicial capital. Its historical origins lie in the Boer republic called the Orange Free State and later Orange Free State Province.
Elections in South Africa are held for the National Assembly, provincial legislatures and municipal councils. Elections follow a five-year cycle, with national and provincial elections held simultaneously and municipal elections held two years later. The electoral system is based on party-list proportional representation, which means that parties are represented in proportion to their electoral support. For municipal councils there is a mixed-member system in which wards elect individual councillors alongside those named from party lists.
Kroonstad is the third largest city in the Free State and lies two hours' drive on the N1 from Gauteng. Maokeng is an area within Kroonstad, and is occasionally used as a synonym of the town itself. It is the second-largest commercial and urban centre in the Northern Free State, and an important railway junction on the main line from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Maokeng is Sesotho and means "place of the thorn trees ".
Bethlehem is a town in the eastern Free State province of South Africa that is situated on the Liebenbergs river along a fertile valley just north of the Rooiberg Mountains on the N5 road. It is the fastest growing town in the Free state province, with its target of being the third largest city after Bloemfontein and Welkom.
St. Andrew's School, established in 1863 is a public school for boys located in Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa.
The South Africa Act 1909 was an Act of the British Parliament which created the Union of South Africa from the British colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange River Colony, and Transvaal. The Act also made provisions for admitting Rhodesia as a fifth province of the Union in the future, but Rhodesian colonists rejected this option in a referendum held in 1922. The South Africa Act was the third major piece of legislation passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom with the intent of uniting various British colonies and granting them some degree of autonomy. Earlier, the British North America Act, 1867 had united three colonies and the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 had united the Australian colonies.
The Supreme Court of South Africa was a superior court of law in South Africa from 1910 to 1997. It was made up of various provincial and local divisions with jurisdiction over specific geographical areas, and an Appellate Division which was the highest appellate court in the country.
The courts of South Africa are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in South Africa. They apply the law of South Africa and are established under the Constitution of South Africa or under Acts of the Parliament of South Africa.
The Free State Division of the High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law with general jurisdiction over the Free State province of South Africa. The division sits at Bloemfontein.
The Ou Raadsaal is a historic building in Pretoria, South Africa, located on the south side of Church Square. The Ou Raadsaal housed the Volksraad, the parliament of the South African Republic, from 1891 to 1902.
The National Museum in Bloemfontein dates back to the 1870s, when its collections and displays comprised mainly rarities from around the world. It was established on 20 July 1877 and opened to the public on 20 May 1878. The old Raadsaal building was made available by the then Free State Volksraad for hosting the Museum collections. A new museum building was completed in 1913 and the official opening took place in 1915. Since 1881 the museum has been subsidised mainly by government. Through donations, purchases and exchange agreements the Museum’s collections slowly got established and grew to a wide variety of natural and human science artefacts.
Johannesburg City Hall is an Edwardian building constructed in 1914 by the Hawkey and McKinley construction company. The plan for the building was drawn in 1910 and construction was started in 1913 and finished in 1914. The Gauteng Provincial Legislature currently occupies the building. The City Hall has seen many political events on its steps from protest meetings to a bomb blast in 1988.
Jacob Abraham Jeremy de Villiers was a judge of the Appellate Division from 1920 to 1932 and Chief Justice of South Africa from 1929 to 1932.
The Old Presidency or Ou Presidensie (Afrikaans) is a museum, art gallery and theatre in the city of Bloemfontein, South Africa, located on President Brand Street in the heart of the city. The former residence of the President of the Republic of the Orange Free State from 1886 until 1899 when the city fell to the British Empire during the Second Anglo-Boer War.
The National Convention, also known as the Convention on the Closer Union of South Africa or the Closer Union Convention, was a constitutional convention held between 1908 and 1909 in Durban, Cape Town and Bloemfontein. The convention led to the adoption of the South Africa Act by the British Parliament and thus to the creation of the Union of South Africa. The four colonies of the area that would become South Africa - the Cape Colony, Natal Colony, the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal Colony - were represented at the convention, along with a delegation from Rhodesia. There were 33 delegates in total, with the Cape being represented by 12, the Transvaal eight, the Orange River five, Natal five, and Rhodesia three. The convention was held behind closed doors, in the fear that a public affair would lead delegates to refuse compromising on contentious areas of disagreement. All the delegates were white men, a third of them were farmers, ten were lawyers, and some were academics. Two-thirds had fought on either side of the Second Boer War.
Tamarin "Tammy" Wessels is a South African politician who is the national youth leader of the Freedom Front Plus. She has been serving as a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa since May 2019. She was previously a Member of the Free State Provincial Legislature. Wessels is married to fellow FF Plus MP Wouter Wessels.
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